toys

Rats! Taobao Censors Toys, Vendors Cry Fowl

Toys riffing on China’s hottest online idiom, “calling a rat a duck,” were yanked from online shelves this past week, a sign of the idiom’s continued political sensitivity.  The tongue-in-cheek saying “calling a rat a duck”...

China Still King of the Global Counterfeit Trade

According to a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 68 percent of all counterfeit goods seized globally between 2008 and 2010 were manufactured in China. Quartz reports: Counterfeit goods make up about 2% of world...

Lego to Build Plant in China

Danish toymaker Lego is to start work on its first Chinese factory in Zhejiang next year. The plant will help satisfy demand in Asian markets where sales have been growing at over 50% per year, boosted by rising middle classes...

CCTV Finds Toys Still Made from Medical Waste

While baby milk powder is smuggled into China from Hong Kong and around the world due to fears of tainted domestic products, a recent CCTV investigation showed another health hazard for children both in China and abroad. At...

Toys “R” Us Aims Towards China’s ‘Tiger Moms’

With the recent rush of online shoppers trying to get Singles’ Day deals and claims of the continuing need for economic growth, Toys “R” Us has announced it will launch an e-commerce site in China. Toys...

Disney, Walmart Toy Supplier Faces Sweatshop Accusations

Corporate responsibility organisation Sacom has accused a Shenzhen toy factory, whose customers include Disney, Mattel and Walmart, of labour abuses such as forced, excessive overtime and employment of underage workers. It also...

Chinese Girls Just not into Barbie

Marketplace looks at why the Barbie flagship store in Shanghai is not a huge success: This saleslady hawks Barbie-brand eye shadow. Was $17, now $12. T-shirts are half off. It’s a big comedown from the store’s...

Mattel Fined $2.3 Million for Tainted Toys from China

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has fined Mattel $2.3 million for lead-tainted toys that it imported from china. The fine stems from the toymaker’s 2007 recall of 95 types of toys and up to 2 million units,...

U.S., Europe Warn China on Toy Safety

Both the European Union and the United States have urged China to increase its safety efforts, particularily towards unsafe toys, as the holiday season approaches.  In 2007, over 20 million Chinese toys were recalled for a...

China Toy Firms are the Latest to Suffer

Hit by the world economic crisis and new product regulations, Chinese toy companies are scrambling to stay viable. From Times Online: One after another, once-bustling factories are falling silent and closing their doors while...

EU And US Team Up On Chinese Toys

From BBC News: The EU and the United States have agreed to work closely to persuade Chinese toy-makers to improve the safety of their products. Millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled in 2007 after safety concerns about lead...

Disney Case Highlights China Supply Chain Pitfalls

From Reuters via Earthtimes.org : In his dim two-room flat, Huang Renzhong showed a visitor a Mickey Mouse statuette and explained how creating Disney figurines during 15-hour work days in a grim factory led to a $90,000...

China Toy Exports Up 20 Per Cent In First 10 Months of 2007 Despite Recalls – AP

Chinese state media reports suggest, yet again, that the “Made in China” toy scandals may have involved more bark than bite. Still, the statistics leave some room for doubt. AP via USA Today: The exports worth $7.07 billion between January and October were a 20.1% increase from the same period in 2006, the official Xinhua […]

China Won’t Be Toyed With – Barbara Demick

Toy manufacturing is the gift that keeps giving if you’re on the China beat during the holidays. After presidential candidate Barack Obama’s remarks about banning Chinese toy imports to the U.S., the Los Angeles Times’s Barbara Demick visited Beijing’s Hongqiao toy market: Especially to an older generation of Chinese, who were raised without the privileges […]

Traditional Toys Sales Skirt China Recalls – Mindy Fetterman

A predicted Christmas cataclysm for toys “made in China” has failed to materialize in the U.S. The reason? Children don’t read the news. From USA Today: A series of high-profile recalls of Chinese-made toys in the fall left many consumers vowing that they wouldn’t buy toys made in China this year. Some analysts feared toy […]

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